Sep 152023
 
imperial triumphant jacobs ladder

The rarely covered Rush deep-cut “Jacob’s Ladder” is the climax from side one of Rush’s seventh album, 1980’s Permanent Waves. It’s the album where they began to, tentatively, incorporate other forms other popular music into their prog metal sound. “Jacob’s Ladder” combines these competing tendencies, with some of the heaviest music of their career to date with a synthesizer interlude that sounds like it could have been written by Vangelis.

It makes sense that metal bands would be drawn to the track and it’s repetitive pummel, and the first ever cover appears to have been by metal singer Sebastian Bach. American experimental metal band Imperial Triumphant have really been jumping on the cover wagon lately. Their latest is a predictably heavy cover of “Jacob’s Ladder.”

For the heavy parts, Imperial Triumphant play it pretty straight, albeit way more metal, though Geddy Lee’s wail is replaced by lead singer’s Zachary Ilya Ezrin’s deep growl. They keep the knotty prog lead and bass guitar parts and lean into the bolero aspect. (Though they can still pull off the swingier parts, too.)

It’s basically more metal Rush until we get to the synthesizer-heavy bridge. Imperial Triumphant doesn’t really do synthesizers, at least in the ’80s sense. They add them to the track when you’d expect, but then they drop away pretty quickly in favour of abstract guitar textures and sound effects. Exrin’s voice is slowed and possibly flipped and then there is a big buildup that gets increasingly loud and knotty until it returns to the climax of the song.

Aug 232023
 
Lavalove

“Lithium” is the third single from Nirvana’s Nevermind. Though less of a hit than the two previous singles, it is the band’s fourth-most streamed song to date, and is one of their most covered. The one-word chorus probably helps with that.

Lavalove are a California self-styled indie pop band that just released their debut album this spring.  But their cover of “Lithium” is not what you think of when you think of “indie pop.”

They begin the song pretty close to the original, but with a faster pace. The biggest difference at first is lead singer Tealarose Coy’s voice, which is bratty and a little affected in a way that doesn’t really fit the otherwise faithful grunge sound of the verse. (Coy’s professional name does justice to her delivery.) In the chorus, she is joined by backing vocals that, along with a double beat, give the song a bit of a pop-punk feel.

But the real departure, and the reason the cover is really fun, is what they do in the bridges. For the first iteration of the bridge, the distortion drops out the band vamps. Coy drops the “I’m not gonna crack” refrain from this section, just singing the first part of each line. She and the guitar drop out at the end, before the return to the verse. For the second bridge, there’s utter cacophony from distorted voices, one bringing back in the “I’m not gonna crack” refrain, and one that is indecipherable (and sounds like an atonal saxophone). It’s almost like a tribute to the noisier side of Nirvana.

It’s a far cry from “indie pop” – a cover that starts out sounding fairly faithful but then going off in some weird, abrasive directions in the bridge.

Aug 112023
 
Third Eye Blind

In the wake of Sinead O’Connor‘s death, there have been a lot of covers of her songs, as you might expect. Many artists have defaulted to her most famous performance, her legendary cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Some bands have been going for deeper cuts, however.

One of those bands is, um, ’90s rock group Third Eye Blind, best known for their 1997 US Top 5 hit “Semi-Charmed Life.” Singer-songwriter Stephan Jenkins is also an infamous jerk, which makes the tribute and song choice more incongruous. The song is “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Sinead’s follow-up single to “Nothing Compares 2 U.” A personal song about O’Connor’s experience with fame and pregnancy at the same time, it might seem like an odd choice for Jenkins. But, then again, given the song’s refrain, maybe not. Continue reading »

Jul 282023
 
string revolution folsom prison blues cover

There are few more iconic openings to country songs than Johnny Cash saying “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” at the beginning of “Folsom Prison Blues” opening his live album At Folsom Prison and the prisoners just erupting. Any cover version of this song has to reckon with that moment, and probably the best thing to do is to utterly ignore it: either cover the original 1955 recording, years before the live album, or to be inspired by the energy in either prison version but omit the intro.

The String Revolution, who we last saw covering “Crazy Train,” solve this problem by recording an instrumental cover. For it, they’re joined by legendary Australian acoustic guitarist Tommy Emmanuel. And their solution to that intro is to create an all new instrumental intro that sounds utterly unlike “Folsom Prison Blues” or any other Johnny Cash song. Continue reading »

Jul 252023
 
Alexa Rose

“Passionate Kisses” is the fourth single from Lucinda Williams‘ breakthrough self-titled third album. A few years later it gained fame through a cover by Mary Chapin Carpenter, a faithful rendition somewhat prettied up by Carpenter’s smoother voice and the mainstream country production. (Check out the slow piano introduction to Carpenter’s version. It could be an entirely different song.) It’s arguably this cover that broke Williams.

Alexa Rose is a North Carolina-based singer-songwriter originally from Virginia. She’s put out two albums of her own material and just released an EP this week, which features a cover of “Passionate Kisses” in addition to two original songs. Continue reading »

Jul 242023
 
jaime branch jason ajemian comin down cover

“Comin’ Down” is the final track on the Meat Puppets’ eighth and most successful album, Too High to Die. It is also the most country song on that record, harkening back to some of their most alt-country work of the previous decade. The song is a jaunty, upbeat country stomper that is actually either about giving up drugs or giving up on the search for enlightenment (or both). The lyrics don’t really match the tone.

Jaimie Branch was a Chicago-based trumpeter with two studio albums as a leader to her credit. She has also played in a number of other combos. Her third album as leader is a posthumous release coming out in August. (She died last summer.) The album features a cover of “Comin’ Down” she recorded with bassist Jason Ajemian, retitled “The Mountain” for this release. Continue reading »